A Shattered Soul A Smaller Soul
by Azreal1313
Summary: No one won the Last War. Everyone lost. The world suffered, and eventually died. The few survivors gambled everything and flung themselves out to the farthest reaches of the multiverse in an attempt to find a new home. Halie Potter lands in the world of RWBY, haunted by the ghosts of her dead, and the demons of her past. Can she find repentance and heal the soul she rent asunder?
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

The world was dying.

That was the simple, harsh truth of the matter. The Last War of the Wizards had earned its title, the spells, and eventually muggle weapons used being more and more horrendous as time went by. What started with disarming spells and killing curses had ended in withering curses applied to whole nations, and nukes falling like rain.

In the end, there was no victor, no heroes, no villains. Neither Halie Potter, nor Tom Riddle fell, even amidst the horrors that consumed the earth. Not even when the Ley Lines snapped, tectonic plates began to shatter, and the skies filled with radioactive sulfur.

Now? The war had finally ended, in a damn ceasefire of all things. Thoughts of vengeance, and glory had long disappeared, only the thought of survival remained. That one clear drive, the will to endure, was what led the tattered remnants of two armies to stand side by side before their one, final hope.

Halie Potter, The-Girl-Who-Lived, The-Chosen-One, Worldbreaker, Soulthief, Mistress-Of-Death, Stood side by side with Tom Riddle Jr., Voldemort, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, The Destroyer, Armageddon, The-Undying-Scourge, and stared down at their last chance.

Somehow, during the bombing of London, the Death Chamber had survived intact, its otherworldly gateway standing tall and unbroken amidst the piles of rubble, and the ashen shadows that used to be living, breathing beings. The gateway, that if all went well, would spirit them away from this dying wreckage of a world, and allow them to walk the infinite void between worlds to find a new home.

Halie looked to the shattered remnants of her army. The few that had survived long enough that she had been able to then ensure their continued survival. That was one of the reasons the war had been so long and so cruel. When neither side can die, the only casualties were everyone else. Luna Lovegood, her seer, who had been so crucial in the war, Nymphadora Tonks, Blaise Zabini, Charlie Weasley, Gabriella Delacour, and of course Draconia Malfoy, Halie's second in command for most of the war.

Of the hundreds of others that had once fought at her side, only these were left. Only these few.

"Tom, is the gate ready?" Her voice was high and cold. Much like Tom's.

The man had reclaimed his true form at some point during the war, and now stood, dark-haired and handsome, his pale skin in sharp contrast to the ash filled air. "Yes. It is ready. I don't know how long it will hold though, the Ley Lines I repaired to get it active are already tearing themselves apart."

"Very well." Hailie sighed. Then turned to the collective soldiers of the light, and the dark. "Alright people! Gate is open! Move! Move! Move!" There were shouts of confirmation, and most of the group ran though.

When each soul reached the ripping curtain that hung suspended in an imaginary breeze, they vanished with a pule of starlight. One by one, the last witches and wizards of Earth left.

"After you Potter." Tom said. His voice betraying no emotion.

"Sure thing Riddle." Halie paused just before the gate. "If you end up on the same world as me, lets not wreck that one too."

He gave a small sad smile. "I think I've seen enough death for a few lifetimes. Perhaps i'll be ready for war again in a few eons."

"Goodbye Tom." Halie said quietly, stepping away from the man, the monster that had defined her, and shaped her whole life from the time she was a babe. As she was flung away from the dying world, a quiet sense of relief spread over her. It was finally over.

….

Inter-dimensional travel it turned out, was not pleasant. Halie screamed a silent cry of agony as she was flung through the blind eternities of the multiverse. The darkness of the spaces between was so beyond that of any mortal dark, that it made the memory of shadow seem as bright as the sun.

Something unknowable, and unfeeling tore at her, flaying flesh from muscle, and muscle from bone, before reversing the process.

Halie sobbed, crying tears that never came, and wished for a death she had forever put beyond her reach.

Just as Tom had made her his Horcrux, he was one of hers. Another rested on a space probe many millions of millions of miles away from earth. Floating in the quiet darkness of space, far from the war torn world.

She had ensured that she would never die, and now she wished she hadn't.

Time seemed to bend back on itself. Sometimes it seemed as if she had been falling for seconds, sometimes it felt as if she had been stuck in this hell, being torn to pieces and resembled like a child's puzzle, for all eternity.

Then it ended. The darkness lightened to black, and she slipped into blessed unconsciousness.

…..

She woke to the incredibly unpleasant feeling of something being rammed through her stomach.

Returning to the waking world, Halie took a quick acessment of her situation. She appeared to have landed in some unknown forest, and currently was impaled on an annoying fallen branch. She pulled the piece of wood out of her midsection with a hiss of displeasure and rose unsteadily to her feet, as the wound closed on its own, and her black silk robe knitted itself back together over it.

She quickly checked over her most precious belongings. The three hallows that held the majority of her soul secreted away within them were safe and sound. The ring, cloak, and wand as utterly indestructible as ever. Her mokeskin pouch, enchanted to hold her life's belongings weightlessly, one of Halie's last ties to the memory of Hermione Granger, sat undisturbed on its chain around her neck.

The gleaming goblin steel naganita, or sword on a stick, as Halie fondly liked to refer to it, that had served her well in the later years of the war, quivered in the trunk of a nearby tree imbedded to the blade end.

A quick flick of her fingers, and the weapon soared into her waiting grasp.

Time to find out just where exactly 'here' was.

….

Professor Ozpin looked at the screen before him incredulously. Devices in the forest near the school had picked up an incredible burst of magic. Not aura, not dust, magic. True, honest to the ancestors magic.

Panic rose quickly inside the powerful hunter. Could it be the the mysterious Maiden killer? Back to finish the job. Opine checked the coordinates on the screen, grabbed his cane and his scroll and ran. He needed to contact Qrow, and Glynda. If the Maiden killer was here, she wouldn't make it out alive.

…

Halie stared up at the birds above her with joy. It had been so long since she had seen any living things other than humans and insects.

The crunch of twigs and leaves under foot brought back fond memories of the forbidden forest, long since turned to radioactive ash.

Then a low growl echoed behind her. She froze and turned slowly to face what appeared to be a demonic werewolf.

She swore loudly. A side effect of splitting your soul was that it killed any animagus form one might have had, leaving her without the easiest and least bloody way to deal with weres.

She raised a single finger and intoned the cruel words to the killing curse. The bolt of sickly green light flew across the clearing in which she stood and impacted the beast square in the chest. Nothing happened.

Halie began to panic. There were exactly two things that could survive a killing curse. Dementors, because they were soulless monstrosities, and herself and Tom, because they were soulless monstrosities.

That meant that this creature had no soul, and thus soul magic was entirely useless against it, However, it was corporeal, so her second favorite spell in existence would suffice.

The creature charged, its bony exoskeleton flexing and screaming in protest at the speed it was moving.

Halie intoned one single word of power. " _Fiendfyre."_ A single mote of blood red flame flew to land gently on the fur of the creature.

An instant later there was nothing but ash. Halie let the mote return to her and gently caught it between her fingers, pulling the magic the flame had ripped out of the beast's life-force and absorbing it into herself.

…

From the cliff's edge Ozipin looked into the forest below. He stared at his scroll. The magic wielder had wandered into the range of the forest cameras. He watched as she effortlessly incinerated a beowolf. That was not maidens magic. The magic of the maidens was elemental and pure. Neutral in nature.

This…this was something else entirely. This magic had something dark, something cruel about it. It's nature was echoed in its wielder, who had smiled at the beowulf's howls of pain. She had delighted in its demise.

The girl herself was strangely out of place. She looked no older than nineteen, perhaps younger, but every inch of visible skin was covered in scars. It was if she had been taken apart, and then stitched back together a thousand times by an amateur surgeon. The scars also varied wildly. from what looked like clean slashes, and deep piercing wounds, to burns, to what could only be described as chunks of flesh being torn away from her body. A black silk dress, torn and burnt, covered her frame, and a silvery gaussian wisp of a cloak trailed behind her. Flame red hair flowed down her back, but it was the eyes that frightened Ozpin.

They were violently, shockingly, green. It was not a natural green, in fact there was a sense of un-natural, wrongness about them, but that was not what bothered him. What sent shivers down his spine was the coldness, the hate, and the sorrow they held. No one could amass that in a single lifetime, or at least no-one should. They were they eyes of someone who had truly and utterly lost their way.

Ozpin made a snap decision. It was foolish, irrational, and likely idiotic. However, he was sure in his soul it was the right one. He stepped off the cliff, and fell to the forest below, intent on finding the girl with the green eyes.

…

Twenty four more creatures had assaulted Halie. Twenty four more creatures had been turned to wisps of ash by her fire. It was oddly refreshing, destroying something she knew beyond the shadow of a doubt was evil. Anything without an intact soul was an abomination. She would know.

"You are putting quite a dent in the local Grimm population. I must say I'm very impressed." A low, calm voice spoke from behind her.

She whirled instantly, years of war honing her reflexes. The words of the killing curse flew to her lips, and the elder wand flicked to her hand hungrily. She stopped at what she saw. A man, with the face of a man in their thirties, but the eyes of one far far older. A grey haired man, in a forest full of monsters, calmly sipping a cup of coffee.

It had been so long since she had last had coffee. The beverage had become a commodity shortly into the war, and it had been all gone long before the end.

It was odd to see the simple normal things. It was a reminder that she was far from home. Far from the war torn world she had left behind.

Ultimately, it was the cup of coffee that saved the man's life. The spell died on her lips, and the wand returned to its holster. "Grimm? That's what those things are called?"

The man frowned. "You didn't know?"

She threw back her head and laughed. "No. No I didn't. Im…Not from around here." She chuckled. Not from around here, that was the understatement of the century.

"Where do you come from then? I haven't head of anywhere on Remnant where the Grimm do not reside. Such a place must be a practical utopia."

A bitter snort rose unbidden. "Hardly. Where I come from isn't on Remnant. It's far far from here." She was quiet for a second. "Actually by now, depending on how long it actually took to get here it probably no longer exists."

"Not on Remnant?" The man's brown eyes narrowed. "What exactly do you mean?"

"Im assuming since you didn't saw me killing those…grimm…and didn't panic, Magic is a very real thing in this world as well?" Halie asked.

"Yes." The man was expressionless. He took a small sip of coffee. "So you come from another world, one that now may not exist. I am assuming you fled." She nodded. "You managed to jump between worlds, and have tremendously powerful magics. What exactly are you? And why did you have to leave your world?"

"There was a war." Halie fell into her occulemncy exercises. She didn't know why she was about to tell her life story to a complete stranger. Maybe it was just that she was tired of secrets. "There was a horrible, awful war. A Dark Lord, a monster greater than any before was intent on destroying everything dear to me and mine, and conquering the rest of the world. He was an abomination, and so I fought him. In the process, bit by bit, piece by piece, everything I was fighting for was ruined, destroyed, consumed. Then I fought for revenge I fought the monster for so long I became one. The world suffered, and then it died." Even through the emotionless mask she was holding, tears threatened to flow. "I ran. I and the few survivors of both sides made our peace and ran."

"What do you want now?" The man's voice was soothing, with an undercurrent of shared pain.

Halie thought for a long quiet moment. Her first thought would be peace, but that was a lie. She was a soldier, born for battle, and forged in war. She would be lost in peace. She then thought of family, and friends. That was also a lie. She didn't want anyone to get close, she didn't deserve that. Then she thought of her shattered soul, it's pieces scattered across the cosmos, and the only way to heal it. "Repentance. I have made so, so, so many mistakes. I just want to do some actual good. I want to repay my debt."

The man smiled sadly. "I know the feeling." he whispered. Halie would have scoffed, if it were not for the true, heartrending look of pain his eyes held. "I might have a way to help you."

"Oh?" She raised an eyebrow.

"You landed near a school. A school called beacon, of which I am the headmaster. A school that trains Hunters and Huntresses to fight the creatures of Grimm, to hold back the darkness so that the light of humanity may shine bright." His voice rose in pitch slightly towards the end of his speech.

She laughed. Of course it would be a school. Of course she would meet the grey haired headmaster with sorrow in his eyes.

It brought up painful memories of her mentor, her grandfather figure, and his broken body beneath the tallest tower.

Perhaps this time could be different though. Perhaps she could actually do some good here.

"Are you asking me to join your school?"

"I do belive I am." He replied.

"Yes." She said instantly. "I'll do it. Thank you….for…giving me a second chance."

He smiled. That well hidden sorrow still present in his eyes. "I myself am well acquainted with second chances." He paused. "I do believe we skipped over introductions. I am Professor Ozpin, you can call me Oz if you like."

"I'm Halie-" She almost finished with 'Potter.' However, that name had caused her so much pain, from the day she was born. It was time to start anew. "Uhh…just Halie."

"Alright Halie." Opine smiled and offered her a hand. She clasped it tightly, like it was a lifeline. "Welcome to Beacon Academy."

 **A/N: Okay, confession time. I totally, completely and utterly stole the idea of a RWBY/ HP crossover from the wonderful DragonKingDragneel25, And his wonderful story 'RWBY, JNPR, & HAIL. **

**Then I came to the realization that there were multiple stories in the crossover, and that was amazing. However I couldn't find a single fem!harry RWBY/ HP fic. Sooooo I had to fix that.**

 **Anyway. One thing led to another, and then this was born.**

 **please read and review.**

 **-AZ**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: At the time of this writing, the first chapter of this story has received almost three hundred views, thirty six follows, twenty two favorites, and six reviews, and i just want to thank each and every single one of you. This is the biggest response I have ever received for one of my stories, and i just hope i can make this story worth your time. Thank you for reading.**

 **-AZ**

Ozpin stared at the scroll in his hand in shock. The girl, Halie, was undergoing a full physical so that she would have medical records for her enrollment in Beacon. Currently, she was having her Aura levels measured.

The slim glass screen in front of him glowed with a taunting impossibility. A glowing white zero hung suspended in the glass.

"That's impossible. Nothing other than the grimm can possess zero aura." He whispered. Even plants and fungi had trace amounts of aura, normally in the high forties to low fifties. He supposed a twenty of below could register as a false negative, but nothing sentient, and precious few non sentient beings could register that low.

"What is that?" The flame-haired girl looked at him quizzically, her unscarred eyebrow arched.

"Aura is the physical manifestation of our souls, when unlocked, and properly trained it can be used to protect one's self from harm, and empower an individual with greater speed and strength." Opine explained.

The girl laughed. It was a cruel humorless laugh that sent shivers down the ancient Headmaster's spine. "Ah, that would explain it." She pulled a ring off of her finger and handed it to him. "Here, scan this."

Confused he did so, inanimate objects couldn't have aura, after all they didn't have a soul. His train of thought was interrupted by his scroll beeping happily. The number three thousand and forty three was displayed on the screen. It was still vastly low compared to the scores of most candidates considered for Beacon, who normally registered in the low to mid ten thousand range. "How? What is this, and how does it have a soul?"

"It's my soul." She snatched the ring back quickly and slid it onto her finger. "Or well a part of it anyway. About twenty five percent to be specific." She gestured to her gossamer cloak, and the thin foot long white stick strapped to her upper arm. "These two are the same. Hold almost the exact same amount too."

Opine couldn't help himself. He took an involuntary step backwards, recoiling in horror. He looked at the girl before him in a new light. She had spoke of repentance, yet she had committed the ultimate sin, she had destroyed the one thing that separated man, from the grimm. He readied himself for an attack, a reaction of some kind. It never came.

The girl simply looked at him with those sad, broken, too-green eyes that were far too old for her young face. Finally he simply choked out one word. "Why?"

"Because the enemy I was fighting, the monster I was speaking of?" He face grew emotionless, the way it had before, when they spoke in the forest. As if she put on a porcelain mask. "He split his soul first. He ripped it into thousands of tiny pieces and hid them where they could not be found, for the soul can't move on to its 'next great adventure' incomplete. It made him immortal. Because, because we, my allies and I, were fighting against an enemy that could not die, we were losing. Every victory was just buying time. We were fighting a war of attrition that we just couldn't win." She sighed heavily, a glimpse of the agony beneath slipping through a crack in the mask. "We needed an immortal of our own. We needed someone to sacrifice their own soul, in order to be able to fight him, to match him blow for blow."

"And so you did." He didn't have to ask. It was just a statement.

"Yes. I couldn't, wouldn't let another make that sacrifice in my place." She looked Ozpin straight in the eyes. "It is one of my many many crimes for which I seek repentance."

His opinion of the girl rose immensely. To doom herself, to match an a great foe, to sacrifice everything in defense of others. The girl had done very evil things, of that there was no doubt. However, he did doubt that she was evil herself. Dark? Yes. Willing to do anything to protect what she cared for? Yes. Willing to do terrible terrible things? Yes. Evil? No.

She was not a grimm, she was broken, but not beyond repair. Nothing truly evil knew anything of love, of sacrifice, or of redemption, repentance, or remorse. "I see. So is there none of your soul inside your body?"

She chuckled. "The body requires some small bit of soul to keep running. About five percent resides here. The remaining twenty percent is scattered about in very hard to find locations around my old world."

"Hmm…" Ozpin rubbed his chin In thought. "I suppose you likely has some amount of aura, probably just undetectable by this device. For the purpose of your paperwork, I'll just record the number twenty five, which would not be picked up by the scanner. We will just have to get a more sensitive device."

"Ah. I see. Is there anything else sir?" Her voice was clipped, and militaristic. She reminded him of a less cocky Ironwood for an instant.

"Yes actually. The welcome ceremony for new students begins in about an hour. Students will be arriving in ten minutes." He grinned at her.

"Ah. I see."

He waited. Then raised an eyebrow when she didn't move.

"I mean, i'll go wait for my fellow students." She said flatly.

"Better."

…

Ruby Rose bounced in place with excitement. The transport was coming to a rest at the entrance to Beacon. Beacon! She could hardly believe this was real! Just days ago she had another two years to wait, and now she was here, here to take her first steps as a huntress in training.

Nothing could dampen her mood, not even the retching of a blonde haired teen behind her.

…..

Weiss Schnee stood perfectly still. Here in Vale, by all rights she should be free. She should be out of her father's reach, beyond the range of his disapproving gaze. She had learned at an early age however, that nowhere was beyond her father.

So she stood, rigid, in control and cold.

She would make him proud. For once. Just once she would like to see him smile. Just once she would like to see something other than anger in his eyes.

….

Blake Belladona sat, in a darkened corner of the transport. She flinched at each pair of eyes that fell across her.

Irrational she knew, but she thought that each and every one of them _knew._ Knew what she was, what hid beneath the bow, what she had done.

This, this was her penance though she supposed, for her crimes. For the crimes of the organization she had now left behind. And so she sat in silence held her knees to her chest and wished to be invisible.

…..

Halie watched the transport descend, and students pour out from it like an inexorable tide of flesh.

She hid under her father's cloak, trailing after this group, or another listening to the idle chit chat, the useless, pointlessness of small talk. She listened to gossip, and heard about the newest brand of shoe. She heard of friends, and lovers, and teachers and parents. She heard life.

Halie cried.

Seeing people, free, untouched by pain and war, with free hearts and innocent souls. Seeing people speak of inconsequential things, and just _live_. She realized that she had made the right choice, to attend this school, to fight the grimm.

There people had hopes, and dreams, families and lives. She would fight for that, she would fight to protect them.

She smiled. It felt good to have a cause that actually meant something again.

"Actually some of my friends are here now, so bye see you later!" A quickly shouted conversation caught Halie's attention. A yellow haired girl who had spoken was walking with, well being dragged by really, a group of people that Halie's subconscious didn't even bother to remember any details of.

What did catch her attention then was the small girl left behind. A red head, though more of a dark auburn than Halie's flame red, with a little red hooded cloak, and what appeared to be an overly frilly red and black dress. She looked younger than any of the other students. Sixteen at most Halie guessed.

She looked lost, confused, and more than a little sad. Halie followed her in silence, invisibly, but was distracted by a flash of movement out of the corned of her eye, and so missed the girl trip on some flagstone.

What she did not miss was the girl falling backwards into a pile of metal briefcases, one of which flew open with a crash, revealing a row of glass jars filled with some unknown powders. The air filled with some escaped powder. It rose and colored the air in loose lazy swirls of movement. To Halie, it tasted like power, like magic, it was electric and spoke of raw, unbridled fury, the wrath of nature, held by only the weakest of constraints.

A new girl caught Halie's attention as she rushed forward in dismay. "My dust! The girl cried." She gathered up the opened briefcase and picked up a cracked phial holding red 'dust.' "You idiot! Watch where you are going next time!" Nervously Halie watched as the new girl, who reminded her an awful lot of Draconia, shook the phial with each word, accidentally adding more powder to the air. "This is dust! Ice! Fire! Power! You could cause an explosion or something by just rushing around with out looking!"

Halie was just about to interveen, as the sheer amount of power humming through the air was making her nervous when one of the metal cases shifted, then fell. It's sharp corner his the ground.

There was a spark, and as if in slow motion, a flame began to race through the air.

Halie's reflexes took over. In an instant, she pulled her cloak off, and sprinted at the two girls. Her mind raced. She couldn't get up a protego large enough to protect all three of them in time, and while she could likely go unscathed through the impending detonation, she'd rather not test it. She hurled an overpowered banishing charm, and a quick cushioning spell at the dust girl, who she noted idly was dressed all in white, and had white hair.

Flinging her self into the air, augmenting her speed with magic she tacked the littler of the two girls to the ground and her shield slammed into place.

The world exploded with the sound of thunder, fire, ice, and lightning erupted around her shield, striking it with tremendous energy. If she hadn't had to stop ICBM's with her shield, she would have doubted if it would hold. After a moment the storm abated. She stared down at the girl she had tackled to the ground, who was currently looking at her with something between fear, and awe. "Are you okay?" she asked.

…

Ruby's day had not been going very well. Abandoned by her sister, then hitting her head on some really sharp edged metal briefcases, and being yelled at by some bossy rich girl, as if tripping had somehow been Ruby's fault.

Then the day got worse. Ruby had noticed one of the cases fall, had seen the spark ignite the dust, had watched the flame build. And she hadn't moved. She had frozen up, panicked. She should have been safely out of range in an instant. Speed was what she did! Instead she froze. At least the bossy girl did as well.

She had waited for a world of pain, instead she just felt someone tackle her to the ground, and then a glowing barrier had interceded between her and the detonating dust. Ruby looked up at her savior and recoiled slightly in shock.

The girl that had tackled her was scarred. Like really really scarred. Ruby counted seven on her face alone. It was hard to get a scar with aura, first an attack had to get through your shield and then it had to be a catastrophic enough wound that the user's aura couldn't heal it completely. Ruby couldn't help but wonder what the hell must have happened to leave the redhead on top of her otherwise pretty face so horrifically marked.

Too bright green eyes met her own, and a flicker of concern appeared. The explosion ended and the barrier fell. "Are you okay?" the girl asked.

Ruby nodded. "Yeah! I'm fine! I wouldn't have been if you didn't save me though…that would have been painful." She grinned broadly at the scarred girl. "Thanks for that."

The teen didn't speak, simply nodded slightly, then almost quicker than the eye could see rose to her feet. Ruby pushed herself up as well.

Bossy girl was running back over. "What the hell did you do…whatever that was for! I had the situation under control! You weren't needed!" Bossy girl screamed at scarred girl. Ruby really needed to learn their names.

Scarred girl gave a slight shrug.

"What? Are you mute or something! I asked you a question!" Bossy girl advanced quickly.

Ruby had enough. "Oh shut it princess! We both moved too slow and you know it!"

"Heiress actually." A soft voice came from behind them all. A pale skinned black haired girl, with a large purple bow on the top of her head, and a wary, nervous look to her approached. "Weiss Schnee, heiress to the Schnee dust company."

"Finally someone recogniz-" 'Weiss' started.

"A company known for it suspicious contacts, and less than legitimate business practices, and yes you were too slow." The dark haired girl gave a small smile and the turned to walk off.

Weiss sniffed indignantly and gathered up her things in silence.

Ruby sighed, before turning to her savior. "So what's your na-" There was no one there.

This was not shaping up to be a very good day at all.

…

Halie had retreated back into her cloak the second she was sure the girls were safe. Being here in this world of life, and light, and color, and movement was wrecking havoc with her nerves. Each word, each laugh, each footstep and twig snap made her twitch.

Each glint of light looked like a hostile spell, or a muzzle flash. Each movement at the edge of her vision was an enemy sneaking around for a kill.

She couldn't take it anymore, so she hid beneath her cloak, and let the silvery fabric hide her away from the world and dull her perception of it.

Panic began to seep into her, washing along her nerve endings like a cold wave. Sweat began to bead up on her brow, and her breathing began to come in short gasps.

Memories flashed through her mind, the sound of gunshots, the scent of burning flesh, the color of the killing curse.

Her fingers numb she dug in her pouch for a calming draught and lifted the phial to her lips. The cold, absent numbness swept through her, bringing with it the detachment that had kept her alive through the war. She craved the numbness, she wanted not to care.

Halie fought through the potion induced haze and picked herself up from where she had fallen, behind one of the trees off the path. She knew that calming draughts were addictive, and she refused to let her self give in. Just like she refused to let the horrors of war rule her mind. She slammed her occulmency barriers back into place with full force, and the memories retreated to dark corners of her mind.

…

Ozpin gave a rather uninspired speech. He knew that. He had a better speech prepared when he walked on stage. Then he had looked out on the assembled crowd.

Summer's daughter. The small silver eyed girl, who was to be one of the greatest weapons of the upcoming war.

Pyrrha Nikos, a possible maiden candidate.

Jaune Arc, the boy who thought he had fooled the whole staff with his faked transcripts. Ozpin was still unsure if he had made the right choice accepting the boy, but his heart was in the right place, and he had so much potential. That and Ozpin remembered the boy's grandfather when he had passed through Ozpin's school.

Then there was miss Belladonna, the White Fang defecte seeking redemption as a huntress.

And then there was Halie…the inter dimensional traveler with a broken soul, and an undoubtably damaged psyche.

Never before had events conspired in such a way that so many individuals stood on such a precipice. With each soul, he had to wonder, would they be another of his many many mistakes. Was he leading them all unwittingly to their doom? To their deaths?

For so long, he'd been playing a game of chess with lives as pieces, and all of humanity at stake. He just hoped that his role as chess master hadn't blinded him to the fact that the pieces were in fact people.

And so he gave a short, uninspired speech in a daze, visions of silver eyes and lightning bolt scars filling his head.

 **A/N: Thanks for reading!**

 **Btw, I need OC's. I want to flesh out the student body of Beacon, and I would love to include some characters made by you guys! Send them by PM, or leave a review.**

 **I need:**

 **Name**

 **Species**

 **General appearance**

 **Semblance**

 **weapon**

 **ect.**

 **Thanks!**

 **-AZ**


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Haile sat with her back pressed agains the cold stone of the ballroom window. A notice-me-not charm, layered with a disillusionment hid her spot just beyond the glass panes of the room.

She couldn't stand the noise, the crowds, the constant ever shifting chaos of the Ballroom. This world was obsessed with colour, light, and asymmetry. It was too much. Every sound, every movement caught from the edge of vision…she couldn't do it. Every face looked like a corpse or a killer.

Worst of all, the life reminded her of her victims, the students of Hogwarts, her friends. She could see them amongst the crowd, as if they were there. Ghostly hallucinations who cursed her name. The parallels were frightening, the academy of the arcane, led by the Grey headmaster with past regrets. At least the children here knew that they were here to become soldiers.

She hadn't been so lucky.

Enough self pity damnit! She snarled inside her head. You sill live, you still fight. You have one last chance, to right what once went wrong, to correct your mistakes. She gritted her teeth and dropped into the courtyard below. Halie stopped her plummet with a thought, hovering for the merest of instants before she stepped onto the cobble below.

A white marble statue rose up before her, bringing with it memories of the fountain in the Ministry. This one display a group of four individuals back to back, blades readied to fight against some long forgotten foe. At its base a brass plate had long since had its inscription stolen by time.

She idly wondered for a second who these four were, was it a monument to victorious heroes? Or a memorial to vanquished martyrs, like her family home. She supposed it didn't matter.

"Impressive, that you slipped past Glynda. I think that is the first time thats happened." Ozpin's soft whisper still managed to cast echoes across the hard stone of the yard.

Halie repressed the urge to turn. "Impressive that you have now snuck up on me unaware twice. I think thats a record."

"I suppose it would be wouldn't it." Ozpin's voice held layers of understanding to it. "Coffee?"

"Wha-" Halie spun to see that the professor was holding two steaming mugs of black coffee, and a small platter of biscuits.

"Damnit don't tell me you have a sweet tooth." Halie forced a chuckle, images of lemon drops and acid pops danced in her head.

A small smile graced the Headmaster's face. "No, I do not. However, I've found that my students more often than not do. The young woman you saved today, Ruby Rose is her name, is especially fond of my cookies."

"Yours…you bake?" Halie couldn't suppress a snort at the image of the imposing man in the Weasley family apron.

Ozpin sat down on the edge of the statue's plinth, he gestured for her to join him. "I find it useful to have hobbies. It takes your mind off of all the people who have died because of your mistakes."

"Ahh. I haven't had time to ever really find one, used to play a sport. Then well…war happened." Halie took the offered seat and the mug of coffee, breathing in the heavily scented steam. "I…I don't remember the last time I had coffee."

"I noticed you missed dinner. Do you even require food?" The question was blunt and to the point.

"I can eat, and I feel hunger. Would ceasing to eat kill me? No. It however is…mildly unpleasant." Halie picked up a biscuit and gave it a small taste. "These really are good and I don't think thats just because i haven't eaten in a couple years."

"Years?" Ozpin raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah, too much cloud cover, too small sample size of surviving species. Nothing edible could grow."

"I'm sorry." Ozpin murmered softly. He raised his mug in a sad toast. "Too past mistakes, friends lost, and new beginnings."

Haile raised her mug as well.

Hours later, long after both cups were drained, and the biscuits eaten, the professor and the solider sat and watched the first rays of dawn creep over the horizon.

"You will need to go prepare soon, for your initiation" The headmaster broke the silence first.

"Yes. I am unsure what this initiation entails exactly, however." Haile said.

Opine smiled. "Get thrown into the forest, kill some grimm, recover an artefact, try not to die."

"sounds eas-"

"Learn teamwork by finding and being assigned your permanent partner as well as squad." Ozpin's smile grew into a grin.

"Fuck."

"Indeed. I believe everyone who comes here has something to learn, most of all me. I doubt even our best combat instructors could teach you anything. Your fellow students however? I believe there is an infinite amount you could learn from them."

"I don't want anyone around me, I'm not safe! Those nearest to me suffer horribly!" Halie protested.

A somber shadow filled the headmaster's gaze. "I don't think being far from you saved those who died when your world fell."

Halie was stunned to silence. How dare he! How dare he act as if he knew anything.

"Perhaps, if the 'Monster' you told me about, Tom Riddle, had been better at being human, had been taught, or been willing to learn compassion, and understanding, then maybe the deaths could have been averted. Or perhaps not." Ozpin sighed softly. "We can't change the past, only the future."

"So you think I am just like Tom?" Halie asked, her eyes shinning brilliant green in the faded light.

"From what you've said tonight, yes. You are just like Tom, broken, forgotten by the world, stripped of everything you love by a hateful world. Only he rebelled against the hate. You accepted it, bought it in. Made your self the perfect sacrificial lamb." Another sigh. "I've seen it before. Live Halie, experience the world. Let yourself heal, and let yourself feel."

"I'll try." Halie whispered.

Ozpin stood up and left the auburn haired witch to her thoughts. "I'll see you at breakfast."

-_-_-_—_-_—-_—_—_—_—_—-_—_-_—-_

Ruby Rose was a small bundle of nerves on the way down to breakfast. Her sister just had to go and remind her of the impending team forming, and then dropped the ball of not wanting to be Ruby's partner at Beacon.

Ruby did now make friends easily. The few she had at Signal had taken years to craft, and she still got anxiety attack about them just tolerating her, sometimes she didn't know why anyone would want to be friends with her, she was an awkward, socially ignorant little girl, and everyone here came from the same year's and the same schools. They knew each other. She knew no one.

And now she had to make the most important decision of the next four years…good luck?

She reached the breakfast room ridiculously early, unable to stand the nervous energy of the ballroom any longer.

The only other inhabitants were the quiet boy with pink streaked hair, and his frighteningly over exuberent redheaded friend, Ruby thought she caught something about sloths in the verbal diarrhoea that poured out of the girl's mouth.

Then one of the side doors opened, one from the courtyard, and the scarred girl the one who had tackled Ruby out of the way , slowly tentatively peeked her head in. After what looked like a second of fierce mental debate, she stepped into the room, and headed to the farthest corner from the loud girl. Which happened to be near the seat Ruby was currently occupying.

The scarred girl hesitated and ruby thought she saw a shadow of panic pass through the girl's startlingly green eyes.

Now that Ruby was able to get a good look at the girl, the outfit she wore, consisting of a black tattered robe, over some vaguely militaristic cargo pants and a grey tank top, roughly patched, and stitched together from multiple garments.

She had the look of someone who had stopped caring about her appearance, the wild look that refugees from the regions beyond the kingdoms sometimes had. Besides her clothes, every inch of skin below her neck was wrapped in thin bandages, like a burn ward patient. Her face was crisscrossed by scars, one of which, was shaped like a lightning bolt on her forehead, and stretched down, crossing her eye, leaving a noticeable gap in her brow, to settle just aside the corner of her mouth, pulling it down in a perpetual half frown. Another stretched from the other corner of her mouth across to her jaw, as if a knife had been forced between her teeth and yanked aside. A wedge was missing from an ear as well.

And her eyes…they were so vivid they burned. The green seemed to almost glow, and when Ruby looked into them, she felt a deep, omnipresent sorrow fall onto the room. It was if the sunlight from the windows still shone as bright, but the room had still darkened, a shadow with no source and no end.

The girl broke Ruby's gaze and moved to turn away in a flourish of fiery red hair.

"Wait!" The volume of Ruby's voice startled her. "Uh, I never got to thank you, for you know…yesterday."

The girl stopped. "Ah. Yes. That." Her voice sounded strained, and had a slight hoarseness to it, as if her throat was straining to make the sounds.

"And uh, I never got your name so would you like kinda want to sit and have breakfast?" The words kinda just vomited out of Ruby's mouth. Damnit, Ruby she thought, now you sound like a moron.

"Ah. I-I suppose."

"My name is Ruby by the way. Ruby Rose. I Don't think I remembered to say that."

…

A fierce panic had gripped Halie's bones from the moment she had entered the dinning hall. Her movements felt…stiff, almost mechanical, as she forced her self to slow herself to a speed more expected of an average human. Her paths seemed oddly limited as she focused on traversing the distance between two points and not simply willing herself there.

She found herself lacking many simple human gestures. Nervous tics, and imperfections of gait and step.

Luckily almost no one had been there. Unfortunately the three occupants of the room had included the most frighteningly energetic being Halie had ever had the misfortune of crossing paths with, complete with resigned attache, and most unwelcomely, the small girl Haile had saved the previous day.

A small, insecure bundle of nerves and fear who was leaking her innocent little thoughts into the open air, and whom was currently asking Halie her name.

"Halie. My name is Halie."

"Halie…" The girl, no, Ruby asked expectantly.

"No last name." Halie's voice felt too clipped, too monotone. She winced and attempted to add inflection. "Sorry."

"Oh." I wonder why? Is she an orphan.

"Yes, I am." Haile said without thinking. Realizing instants later that Ruby's mouth hadn't moved.

"Bwuh? I Didn't say?" The girl pulled back, questioning what she had heard, doubting her own ears, wondering if she had spoken aloud. Not once did the suspicion of mind reading cross her mind.

"NEVER MIND THAT" Halie's words were laced with a subtle suggestion. Ruby's thoughts smoothed out, her mind carefully ignoring the previous thirty seconds.

"So, what brings you to Beacon? I mean obviously to learn to be a huntress, because i guess, what else could you be doing here." The girl asked.

Halie sat in silence for a moment, wondering wether to lie, stay quiet or pour her motivations. "To be utterly honest, two days ago I didn't intend to get here at all, I just stumbled upon the academy in my travels. The headmaster came across me fighting grim and offered me a spot at the school. I'm not even quite sure what a huntress is. I am, you could say, not from here."

Ruby was still and silent for a moment. Even her mind quieted by surprise. Then it spun into high gear. "Stumbled upon? How? Where are you from? They don't have huntresses there?" She must be from outside the kingdoms, maybe one of the isolated islands, outside the reach of the towers. How would she get to beacon though?

Halie sat for a second and carefully thought up a web of lies that fit into the narrative already forming inside Ruby's mind. The girl was a wealth of information about this new world, as Ozpin's mind was unreachable to her. "I come from a place called earth. I guess we were very isolated, I'd never heard of the kingdoms, or hunters and huntresses before I came here. This is all very very new to me." She flashed a small half smile, trying to project an image of an outsider out of her depth, and not a shell shocked soldier, who was balancing on a knife's edge between sanity and madness.

A flicker of an idea formed. "Maybe you could tell me all about these...huntresses?" The bubble of undiluted joy in Ruby's mind told her she had done the right thing.

"Well, where to begin? I mean huntresses are just the coolest! My mom was one you know! They-" Ruby's happy babbling faded off into the back ground as the room began to fill with students. Their anxieties and hopes seeming to cloud the very air, swirls of fear were everywhere, omnipresent and choking. Halie struggled to get her occulmency in place and hold back the tide so she wouldn't drown in it.

She desperately wished to pull on her father's cloak, and run. Hide from the world, from the pain of feeling, of life.

She couldn't however, so she sat, a cold, empty rock in the middle of a raging river, and waited for it to be over.

-—-

The field where they were to begin their trial over looked the forest Halie had entered this world from. The view was breathtaking in its beauty. The ground dropped away sharply, the precipice opening up to an emerald sea of great trees stretching until they faded into the horizon. Low hanging clouds drifted past, swirling lazily in invisible currents, as the assembled students stood and watched professor Ozpin with bridled enthusiasm, and collared fear.

Halie could sense more of the darkness she had come into conflict with earlier, and her magic churned inside her, like a caged hound ready to hunt. She wanted to fight, to let destruction and death pour from her fingertips. A grin, more a baring of teeth than a smile spread across her face.

Ozpin spoke calmly, with a boredom that could only stem from repetition "For years you have trained to become warriors, and today your abilities will be evaluated in the Emerald Forest. You will make your way to the forest temple, there you will retrieve a relic. You will secure the relic and return. Do not hesitate to destroy anything in your path, or you will die." He looked far too cheerful for the words exiting his mouth. "As for teams, the first person you make eye contact with will be your partner for the rest of your time at Beacon. Choose wisely." A smile spread across his face as he took a sip of his ever present coffee. "Now, prepare yourselves. Any questions?"

Halie was sure the last bit was supposed to be rhetorical. However, the blonde vomity boy raised his hand. "Uh, how are we supposed to get down there? Are we waiting for a ship?"

Ozpin smiled wider "No, you will be falling."

"Ah. Did I uh, miss you handing out parachutes or something?" The boy asked. Halie resolved to keep an eye on him, before he invariably got himself killed.

"You will be utilizing your own landing strategy." Ozpin said, seconds before the metal platform the boy was standing on launched him into the sky.

Halie gave a resigned sigh as she too was launched into the air, her eyes trained on the flailing body careening through the air.

This was going to be a long day.


	4. Chapter 4

Halie landed effortlessly amongst the towering trees, fingers brushing the soft moss that coated every surface, turning the world green. An effect enchanted by the soft golden green dappled light that filtered through the verdant leaves above. The world around her was vibrant and full of life, except it wasn't. There was no birdsong filling the air, no soft chatter of small animals, not even tiny little heartbeats racing along in terror. All was still, all was quiet, all was dead. Only the plants remained,

Around her, in all directions a vague darkness hung at the edge of her consciousness, a prickling feeling of emptiness and fear. It was a watered down twin of the aura projected by dementors, a chill that pierced bone and froze marrow.

A wide grin creased her face. These creatures were completely and unambiguously evil. Soulless monstrosities with nothing but hatred at their cores. No moral quandaries, no shades of grey, and in this still and dead forest, no collateral damage. A shiver of excitement ran down her spine, a feral sort of joy, as coils of power churned under her skin, and deep in her soul, a wolf began to howl.

Ruby landed hard, rolling with the impact and began to run. She needed to find Yang, and fast. She just couldn't be on a team without her big sister. Yang had always been there for her, to help her with her...lack of social graces, and to act as her buffer and her shield from the world. The next two years at signal had been looking very frightening without her sister, but at least the had Qrow. Here? She needed her sister.

Besides, who else did she know here? Who could she team up with? Jaune, while nice seemed...less than great in a fight, and that wasn't great. Blake, was competent, and mysterious, and liked books! But she was even more antisocial than Ruby, and that was just a bad combination. Weiss was just a jerk...

Halie. That was it! Ruby needed to find Yang or Halie! Ruby let out a small sigh of relief immediately before she slammed into an object that hadn't been there moments before.

"Ow! Watch it you idiot!" A high aristocratic voice cried out from beneath Ruby. Weiss was laying on her back, at the end of a several foot trench that their momentum had carved into the ground.

Ruby's face burned red. "I'm so sorry! I didn't see! I"

Weiss shoved Ruby backwards and pulled herself out from under the other girl, and stood up. "Ugh! I have leaves in my hair! And my skirt! And my...Everywhere! You careless idiot!"

Ruby glared at Weiss. She wasn't quite sure why it irritated her so much, but the Gil just got in her nerves. "Well I'm sorry! Why didn't you get out of the way!"

"I didn't see you!" Weiss screamed, shaking her fist at Ruby.

"And I didn't see you!" Ruby screamed back.

"Fine then." Weiss huffed.

"Fine." Ruby mimicked.

Ruby looked down at her scroll on her arm. It clearly had moved her and Weiss together in a team. "Looks like we are partners now I guess." She looked down at her feet. She didn't like Weiss, but at didn't mean she didn't want Weiss to like her.

"Well. I'm not going to be second best! I am a Schnee after all! So let's get going. I wont have you slow me down." Weiss turned and walked away.

Ruby risked a small smile and activated her semblance, disappearing in a cloud of petals. "I'm not slow!"

Halie stepped calmly over the large snake's corpse. It was tiny compared to the basilisk she had fought and killed at age twelve. The creature was starting to dissolve into black smoke, and flow upwards, much like all the corpses of the creatures she had killed prior leaving only blackened, gorged and broken earth as memorials to the beast's rather violent end. The snake much like the basilisk had possessed some resistance to magic, shrugging off the over powered diffindo the had thrown at it without a scratch, though the trees around it bore witness to the spells power with the deep gorge cut through their mighty trunks. A second cutting charm, this one powered with dark magic, had sliced deep into the beast, along with gouging several feet deep into the earth, before a delayed blasting charm cast inside the creature's wounds had covered the clearing in viscera and black blood.

She was quite thankful that the creatures bodies dissipated, otherwise, she would be covered in chunks of gore. Though she did have some theories about the smoke being the creature's essence returning to wherever these things came from.

Her musing was interrupted by a lone shadow, one of the wolf like creatures leaping out of the underbrush.

Halfway through its jump it was impaled by roots and branches from the surrounding brush suspended in midair, by the magically warped flora. Still alive if only barely the creature struggled vainly. Halie watched with disinterest, and the vines and roots grew deep thorns and ripped themselves out. Leaving a tangle of brambles and a mangled corpse as Halie turned and apparated away, appearing in the next sun dappled clearing.

Yang stared at the lock of golden hair floating slowly to the earth. A quiet rage inside her building. Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! She had actually let one a grim lay a hand on her. An ursa of all things, at least it wasn't a Beowulf a small voice whispered in her head.

She hadn't been careful enough, she needed to be untouchable, invulnerable. Not be hit by a minor grim. Her anger at her self, and at the grim that dared to touch her built, until it crescendoed, with a blast of fire.

"My Hair!" She yelled driving her fist into the first creature's face with all the force she could, sending it backwards. Before it could topple back, she dashed around it and slammed her other fist into it, using its own momentum to drive it into her fast dust enhanced punches. "You bastard!" A final strike removed its lower jaw, and snapped its head backwards, the malevolent light in its eyes dimming instantly.

She turned to the second Beowulf "You want some!" Only for it to fall over dead. In its place, the tall dark haired Blake stood, with a single raised eyebrow.

Yang pulled off her sunglasses, prompting a beep from her scroll, as it noted a partnership being formed. "I could have taken it."

The corner of Blake's mouth twitched upwards. "I know."

Ozpin gazed out into the forest, his eyes resting briefly on the patch of smoke drifting lazily from the path of Weiss and Ruby. He hoped the two would learn to work together quickly. They would surely be a formidable pair, once they embraced the other's differences as strengths instead of weaknesses, and once they learned to conquer their own insecurities.

The teams were all forming as intended, and progressing nicely, despite Glynda's misgivings.

And the girl...she was a force of nature. He watched as she casually carved a path through grim after grim, never using the same method to put them down, as if she was a virus mutating, evolving, learning. It was almost frightening to watch.

From what he could tell, she rivaled the maidens in power, perhaps coming in just under them in pure raw force, but the utility of what she could do...grim had been sliced to pieces, incinerated, turned to stone and shattered, turned inside out, rotted while alive, each to devastating and precise effect.

Most frighteningly of all, the cold, harsh smile that graced her scarred face never left. He truly hoped he had made the right choice by recruiting her. He wasn't sure he could put her down if he needed to.

"Ozpin? Are you even listening to me?" Glynda's voice cut through his musing.

"Not particularly. My appologies, what were you saying?"

"That Jaune fellow! I have no idea how he did so well in combat school, he just isn't cut out for this level of combat. He is going to get himself killed." Glynda's voice was laced with irritation.

"He will find his place here, he had potential." Ozpin said, half to Glynda half to himself. Hoping once again he wasn't wrong.

Halie looked around the scorched ground with a raised eyebrow and a hint of bemusement. Lingering traces of thoughts told her the story of what happened here. She could empathize with setting a forest on fire. The first hundred or so times she and Hermione had attempted casting feindfyre had almost been disastrous, often involving the then teenaged girls running like mad away from a burning...something.

After a moment's hesitation, Halie pulled her cloak up and apparated after the two, quite lost girls before they managed to get themselves killed.

She appeared a good hundred meters from them just in time to see them jumping off a tree in what seemed to be an attempt to hitch a ride on a colossal black, bird shaped grim. Halie sighed. Stopping these two from getting themselves killed was going to be a full time job. An instant later she was sitting cross legged invisibly on top of the bird, layering the two girls in as many variants of the cushioning charm as she knew.

She considered a silencing charm on the white haired Malfoy lookalike, who wouldn't stop screaming, pleading, and cursing at Ruby, who for her credit was simply laughing manically. Instead Halie simply layered a modified silencing charm on her own ears, blocking out the high pitched screaming.

The air rushed past Halie, buffeting at her invisible form, and for a second, she could almost imagine she was in a softer, more innocent time, sitting on her broomstick racing for a snitch. Her mind wandered, and she let herself dream of making a broomstick here. Perhaps this "aura" everyone had would let her make a broomstick these people could use. She laughed at the idea of introducing quiditch to this world. Ron would have loved the idea.

Her thoughts shifted back to their usual callous, dark nature at the thought of her dead friend. All her happy memories were inevitablely tainted with blood.

As her mind drifted along darker currents, she felt the grim under her stir. A something that hadn't existed in the creature previously now resided there. An elder power, deep and ancient churned. Halie just had time to raise her occumency shields to full strength before they were swept aside like tissue paper. The careful organization and compartmentalizing of her mind was torn asunder and she was thrust into her own mindscape. The meticulously recreated hogwarts was blackened and warped. Twisted almost beyond recognition. The enemy in her mind looked like nothing more than a ripple in the air, but as it moved, reality rippled with it. The guards she had built on her mind, her walls, and towers melted, like soft wax, memories distorted and played, again and again, anguish and guilt and grief overwhelmed her, as the long suppressed emotions hit her with a tidal wave of force. The thing didn't seem to be reading her mind. Or stopping long enough to even truly see anything at all. It flitted here and there, a mindless unknowable force. Then a sharp pain filled her mind, overriding anything else, and a vauge impression of an open eye filled with tears of blood blotted out her vision. Three unsounded words echoed in the sound of silence. "I see you."

Haile jolted backwards out of her mind into her real self. ,Beneath her the grim was once again a mindless beast, a shadow of a great power cast onto the world. Halie thought of the presence behind that shadow very aware that she knew feeling. It was the same feeling that happened when Tom thrust his mind through one of his death eaters, the same as when she gazed through the eyes of one of her immortals. Something was behind the grim. Something that made Tom look like a saint something that made her look like a firstie again.

For the first time in years innumerable, Halie was afraid. There was something very very truly wrong with this world. Behind its veneer of bright colors and happy people something beyond evil and darkness festered.

High above the forest, Ozpin's grey eyes hardened to beads of steel. 'Hello Salem' he said to the tendril of thought that tried in vain to reach into his mind.

'I've found your little weapon' the silence whispered around him.

'You have found nothing.' Ozpin shoved the presence back away from his mind. It retreated into the space behind air, leaving the world calm and still.

Then the alarms started.

"Ozpin! Glynda cried out. Her eyes were wide with horror. He followed the line of her gaze to the scroll in her hands, and his heart sank. The screen was red with contacts. An army of grim was at his doorstep. "What do we do?"

Ozpin's mind raced for a moment, then a deep calm fell over him. "We watch. All will be well Glynda."

Her eyes revealed her doubt, but trust and loyalty stayed her tongue.

Halie felt the darkness at the edge of her mind deepen instantly as an army of grim revealed their presence. The small part of her mind not currently being torn asunder by the crashing pain of suppressed emotions, cursed. Like their cousins dementors, these creatures must be drawn to negative emotions. And so like the dementors they would be drawn to her like a moth to flame. The attack that pierced her shields had opened her up like a feast.

Bellow her she vaguely heard ruby yelling "jump" the sound carrying through the fog of memories, of crippling fear, fear to make mistakes, fear of acting, fear of not acting. Halie sluggishly shook her head trying to grasp onto something, anything to restore her shields with. Her fingers fumbled with the mokeskin pouch around her neck, before the cold liquid of a calming draught slid down her throat. She threw her shields up with all the force she could, slamming wards and chains back into place over her memories, and locking her emotions up tight.

The darkness still pressed in on her mind, but it was manageable now.

She pushed off her purchase on the bird and plummeted to the earth.

She had an initiation to finish, and then she needed to talk to Ozpin.

AN: Wow! Thank you so much for the amazing response for this story! I still can't believe it to be honest, but we did just cross one hundred favorites, and crossed the two hundred follow mark! I am amazed. Thank you all so so much!

I am looking for a beta for plot purposes, someone to bounce ideas off of because I have a stupid amount of plot points planned out and a lot of worldbuilding I want to run by someone other than myself

-AZ


	5. Chapter 5

Halie let herself regain visibility as she plummeted from the bird grim. Air rushed past, causing her already unruly mop of flame red hair to tangle and gnarl as it whipped around. She focused on the ground, and twisted mid air, apparating herself to the earth, while starting the motion for an arresto momentum. She appeared inched above the ground, and completed her charm as her feet touched the ground, sparing herself the fate of splatting into the ground.

She heard someone speak behind her and whirled around. "Did that girl just appear out of thin air?"

The black haired, well dressed girl with the bow on her head was standing alongside Ruby's sister. From breakfast Halie believed they were Blake, and Yang respectively. Halie opened her mouth to speak, but was interrupted by a pair of screams and one high pitched death threat.

"I'm going to kill you Rubeeeeee!" Two blurs, one red one white slammed into the ground. They then bounced back up, screaming, flailing bundles of limbs and overly fluffy skirts.

"Did your sister just fall from the-are...are they bouncing? What." Blake stood, arms by her sides, eyebrows raised. Yang's mouth was wide open, and her eyes were blank in shock. Halie winced. She may have overdone the cushioning charms a bit. She canceled the charms and drained their momentum away, leading to them landing on top of each other in a pile of ruffles.

A third scream tested the limits of Halie's sanity as the armoured blonde Jaune came flying full speed over the trees. Halie contemplated just using another cushion, but decided against it, and instead simply softened his momentum before he slammed into a large tree. A series of quickly cast, wordless wandless shield charms between him and each tree branch he impacted managed to keep him mostly injury free. Though he did look winded, and a passable impersonation of a birds nest resided in his hair.

"I...can't...even." Blake's eyebrows were attempting to disappear into her hairline, yang was twitching.

Halie shook the strangeness of this world away. She pushed through her anxiety. "There are a lot of grim coming. We need to get out of here, quickly." She could feel the malevolent influence in the distance moving closer. Two particularly were closing fast, extremely fast. In fact Halie could see several trees toppling in the distance. And another scream pierced the air. This one of joy. The insane short red haired energy overhyped thing burst into the courtyard riding a demonic looking bear shaped grim. She killed it seconds before dashing over to the crumbling structure behind the group, and grabbed an oversized rook.

The girl was singing. Singing. Halie feared for the poor thing's mind.

The pink stripe haired boy, was panting and out of breath near the fallen beast. "Nora. Let's never ever do that again."

"Did that girl ride an Ursa?" Blake provided her at this point obligatory comment. Yang seemed to loose her mind, ranting about it not going five-seconds without something insane happening.

Halie decided to quietly slip away into the forest temple and grab one of the chess piece 'relics'

Her fingers briefly paused on a black knight, thinking of her first year at Hogwarts and that fateful game of wizard's chess. Then her eyes fell upon a black bishop. Only fitting, she supposed to play the piece she had stood in as so many years ago. She picked the smooth item up. It was crafted from some type of black stone, but was surprisingly light for its size. She vanished it with a thought, placing it within the nothingness of wherever vanished items went, ready to be conjured back.

She gazed around once more, noting that all the pieces except one had pairs. No doubt one per partnership with the matching pieces making a team. It seemed a rather random way to determine teams, though she supposed their must be some form of thought behind it. Ozpin didn't seem one to leave things to the whims of the fates. Her belief was reinforced by noting that she was holding the only black bishop. How he had guessed she would grab that piece she didn't know. He was a clever bastard though.

The second larger of the grim signatures disrupted her contemplation, a crashing noise rent the air, as trees on the edge of the courtyard exploded into a shower of splinters and sap. A massive armoured scorpion, with deep black flesh covered in the same unearthly pale plates lined with those odd red lines that all grim seemed to possess bore down on the heels of yet another student. She was firing, rather ineffectually at it as she sprinted towards the group.

Blake made no comment this time, instead the assembled students opened fire. The rounds all glanced off of the armoured carapace to no effect other than to slightly annoy the creature. Ruby cried out and charged the creature, a massive, and seemingly unwieldy scythe unfolding out of the gun she was wielding moments before. She leapt. Firing her weapon as she spun through the air in an attempt to build up momentum Halie supposed. Her blade slammed into the creature with an earth shattering clang, and then she fell backwards, not a scratch on the beast. She rolled dodging a stinger and a claw attack as she turned to flee.

Halie stood frozen, the gunfire and screams taking her back in time for an instant. She heard a very different series of voices, familiar and strangers as muggle guns barked their lead filled death along side bolts of spell fire. She clawed her way back to the here and now just in time to see the raven shaped grim throwing feathers the size of trees towards the fleeing girl. Weiss and Yang both exploded into action sprinting towards Ruby. Halie was faster than either.

The elder wand leapt to her hand, and with burst of power, she forced apparition on each feather, keeping their momentum, but changing their direction to send them back at the grim. It managed to dodge its own feathers, but only barely. One grazed its ribs, opening a shallow gash along its side.

The other two girls reached Ruby, and Weiss somehow managed to conjure an ice wall large enough to temporarily block the scorpion from reaching the group.

"We need to get out of here!" Ruby yelled as she sprinted back. "Our mission is to get the relics. Let's grab them and go!"

There was a consensus of nods. "Run and live. I like it." Jaune said.

Relics were grabbed and shoved into bags and packs. And the group started sprinting. "We should get to tree cover! Make it harder for the Nevermore to see us!" Ruby cried. Halie nodded, the plan made sense. She noted that Ruby was holding back in order to keep pace, the girl was very very fast, and that Jaune, Ren, and Weiss were obviously struggling.

She found herself impressed with the pace nonetheless. Her speed was anything but natural. Several dark rituals, a number of artefacts, being bitten, and shifting energy from her core into her limbs provided her inhuman strength and speed. These students were pushing past the boundaries of human ability with nothing but training and Aura. If any of them could use magic...that would be a force to be reckoned with.

They made it to the cover of trees just as the nevermore returned for a second pass. The one or two feathers that made it past the canopy were quickly deflected by quickly conjured shields. Behind them Halie could feel the scorpion giving chase. Ahead...

"Left! Go left!" She shouted, noticing the oily feeling of grim directly ahead and to the right. In the grip of adrenaline no one questioned her, shifting directions with impressive precision. A few moments later they burst into an open field dotted with ruins. Not a thousand meters away the cliffs of beacon rose sharply into the air, above a deep chasm. A thin crumbling stone bridge and a series of broken towers rose out of the mists. She felt her spirits soar. Then the nevermore landed heavily on the central tower. The group scattered. Taking cover behind a number of pillars that covered the area before the bridge.

Behind them the scorpion burst through the woods, flanked by a number of Beowulfs. Including one truly massive creature covered in spines. It gave a deep throaty howl.

Deep in the recesses of what remained of her soul, Halie felt a low growl answer. She made a snap decision. "Go! I'll buy you time."

Before stopping to see if anyone acknowledged her, she was already in motion. She could have finished them at range, or gone for a simple kill with fiendfyre, but she wanted a more personal fight. Her trusted naginita formed In her hand, seemingly crystallising into iron from a spark of blue flame. The goblin steel artefact seethed with power. Thrice forged and thrice sundered it was a blade that had United a nation, and brought another to its knees. It was cast into the River Lethe, beyond the gates of death itself. Lost forever, or at least until Halie had plunged into the river and drawn the blade from the ley filled water.

It was the blade that had severed a leyline and shattered a continent.

The Beowulf Alpha never stood a chance.

She landed half a pace past it and its head rolled to a stop three paces past her. Its red eyes were widened in surprise before the body began to fade to smoke.

The nearest wolflike creature lunged at Halie.

It's right arm was separated from its shoulder with her first strike, and her second hit before gravity had time to take notice of its lack of support. Her blade passed through its torso and its elbow. Cutting it in two at the hip, it's right arm flopping onto the ground with a sickening thump in two pieces. The third creature was too close for her to bring the pole arm to bear, and instead she simply closed her fingers around its throat. A burst of speed slammed it against a wall. She willed her fingers into claws and sunk them into the creature's throat as she held it suspended. She pulled her hand free when her fingers grasped muscle. A chunk of flesh and gore ripped free as the creature tried in vain to breathe without a trachea. She dropped it into the grass and raised the gore covered hand to her mouth and tasted the beasts blood. It tasted like death, and rot. She gagged, glad she hadn't gone for the throat literally.

The remaining three Beowulf turned tail and ran, their fear overcoming their hunger leaving only Haley and the Scorpion.

Its tail shot down, intent on piercing her heart. The strike was casually blocked with a shield while she brought Lament around for a killing blow. To her great disbelief, the basilisk venom impregnated blade that had once parried a killing curse, failed to pierce the beast's amor skittering off at an angle. Before coming to a stop In a nearby boulder the blade tore a deep fiery gash through the ground. "You have got to be fucking kidding me." Haley was forced to apparate backwards as the beast's tail lashed out.

"Fine! You want rough? I'll give you rough!" For the first time since stepping foot on this world, Halie reached deep into her true reserves of power, the ever burning circle of flame that burned in her centre. A hot burning sensation rushed from her chest, down her arms, the veins burning gold from within. "Incarecrae!" Golden chains crystallised out of sunlight, shackles forming around each of the creature's limbs the chains pulling taunt and immobilising the creature. The creature let out a pitiful screech, trying in vain to struggle.

Halie raised lament, energy from the air forming a hazy cloud of static around the blade. She began to move, slicing runes into the air with deliberation, while beginning to chant. It was old magic. Pre-Merlin, atlantean in nature. Powerful, though inefficient, complex and fiendishly difficult to get right.

Glowing circles, overlapping, and spinning, wheels within wheels, glyphs and runes began to expand under the beast. A silver spiral rose up and through the creature, visible, somehow even beneath the carapace. The movement stopped, locking into position as the second portion of the spell began. A faint glisten began to fill the air, signs spun in bands ringing the creature, warning of impending doom in long dead languages. A gossamer haze sprung up between the glyphs, like netting surrounding the struggling creature. Far far above, a patch of stars shone through the clear blue sky, and twinkled once.

Then everything was still.

Then everything was not. A sound, like a gong struck, a clarion call, a peal of thunder, rent the air. A flash of light, reaching from the sky down to the ground. It only existed for a second, but the after image burned a dark black in Hailey's vision. When the spot faded, it was quite obvious that she may have gone slightly overboard. Not only was there no sign of the creature the ground under where it once resided was a crater of black volcanic glass that had splashed up against the shielding, leaving a foot high, jagged hollow pillar, still glowing red from the heat of the spell.

Hailey's knees buckled forwards as the drain of the spell hit her. It was like a combination of hunger, exhaustion and thirst, she felt hollow, and her limbs felt like lead.

She waited for the cool rush of ambient magic back into her system, for the quiet hum in her chest to build back up to its normal levels, and the feeling to vanish.

She waited.

She continued to wait. Then the cursing began. There, thankfully was some magic pouring back into her, but it was more like a slow series of drops, rather than the usual tidal wave of power. Which made sense, as there weren't to he best of her knowledge any damn leylines on this planet, and she had just burned out all of her core's reserves, except magic holding up her glamor, and the magic quite literally holding her together?

She managed to shakily climb back to her feet, as her hearing slowly returned. She had forgotten just how loud that spell was.

She turned just in time to see the great bird creature be viciously decaptiated by Ruby. From what she could make out, they had configured some kind of gigantic slingshot. The physics of which looked dubious at best. A series of unknown glyphs or seals ran up the cliff face before her. They seemed to be constructed out of that powder the Shnee girl had been carrying.

Like the "aura" these hunters had, it was a power source, like the ley, but different, not magical in nature. At least that had been her observation at the time of the explosion. Halie might however have to change her assessment, there was a subtle tang of magic hanging in the air. It was almost obscured by the thick blanket of residue from her own spell, but it was there. It clung like a film on the cliff, but not just where the seals were, no, it seeped into the surroundings air, an after image of power.

Halie shook her head. Clearing her thoughts, she stumbled towards the group coming to a rest next to the boy with the pink streak in his hair. He was visibly winded, and his coat was wrinkled and dirt covered.

"Hey." He panted. "That…was…something?"

"Yeah." Halie raised an eyebrow. "What happened to you?"

"Cliff." He said. Jerking his head to the side, where a crumbled section of rock marked his impact point.

"Ah."

"I'm Ren…by the way." He gestured at the over hyper red head, who was currently dancing what appeared to be a rendition of an Irish jig preformed by someone drunk and on LSD. "That's Nora."

"Ah." Halie said. After a moment of awkward silence, she realised he probably wanted to know her name. "I'm Halie."

"Okay." Red sighed. "I guess we should join them."

"Yeah." Halie grimaced, but forced herself to put one foot in front of the other and march forward to meet the group of teens flushed with adrenaline and the thrill of victory.

—

"That was awesome!" Nora cheered.

The group of students sat in a small antechamber behind the stage of the central auditorium. Opine was currently reading out some team assignments for students Haile had never met.

Haile sagged farther into her chair, her head pounding as she desperately wished to just pull up her cloak and apparate away. She however had to stay. Not that she had managed to gain a partner, or a matching chess piece. Ozpin had however insisted on her presence. Strongly insisted.

So she sat, a migraine building from the sounds, and all the people. Her back pressed firmly into the wall behind her, the cool solid wood gave a false security as panic built in her chest. her blood swirled and rushed through her veins, her breathing grew fast and ragged, as the world drew tight around her vision. Her palms screamed in pain as her nails dug into them, fists clenching and unclenching.

She had to get out, had to leave. She had to-

"-Halie!" Ruby's high pitched voice cut through the paralysis gripping Halie. "Are you okay? Ozpin just called us up." The pressure gripping her chest in a vice receded slightly as she fought against the panic that tore at her insides.

"Im…fine." Halie faked a smile. "Just tired from the fight. Give me a moment."

Ruby seemed to buy the lie, and moved through the stage to join the rest of the students.

Halie wished desperately to take a potion, or a drink, or something to numb her nerves. Her hand inched towards the pouch around her neck and the relief within, but…no. She couldn't, she had to not lose herself, no matter how tempting that was. So instead she slammed her tattered occulmency barriers into place with as much force as she could muster, and walked through the curtain to the glaring lights of the stage.

…..

A/N: so so sorry this took so catastrophicly long...my computer up and died on me and

I didn't have this saved to the cloud. Sigh.


	6. bonus interlude: the blade lament

Lament

First forged as a regular goblin steel blade by Gnarltooth in the first era. When he was killed by a rival king, his blade was broken given to his exiled son, Gringot The Unifier who went into the frozen wastes of Siberia, until he found a tribe of goblin kind who had tamed the dragons there and used them as guardians and mounts. He joined the tribe and eventually defeated the existing chieftain in single combat. He reforged his father's blade in dragon fire, before quenching the blade in the life blood of the creature's heart. With a flight of dragons under his command, and an army of goblins at his back, Gringot returned to his father's kingdom, now under the rule of the same king who had slain his father, and lay siege to it. Night raids of dragon fire from the sky, and all through the day, constant attacks with siege weapons and goblin tunnlers brought the army on a steady march from city to city, until they had steamrolled their way to the capital within a year.

A coup inside the city deposed the king, offering his life, and full surrender in exchange for being spared dragonfire. Gringot agreed, and his numbers swelled.

Soon the dragon horde was sweeping across the known world, from Egypt to Rome, conquering each fragmented goblin settlement, and binding them to the banner of Gringot. Soon the goblin nation was born.

Wizard kind became nervous about the threat that this new goblin empire posed. Under the guise of opening negotiation with the new sovereign state, Wizards assassinated Gringot, and Lament once more lay broken.

Instead of falling to pieces as the Wizards hoped, the goblin nation was bound together by the tragedy. One of Gringot's generals, a goblin known only by the moniker The Cruel, took up the broken blade, and with it a new name, Gudul The Purifier. Raids were constructed against human settlements caputuring any wizards or witches found and slaughtering the muggles. After months of this, with ineffectual attempts to put a stop to it by the coallition of wizards lead by the immortals of Atlantis doing nothing to end it, the plans of Gudul came to fruition. Three hundred and twenty seven wizards were put to the sword at once, every last drop of iron ripped from their blood and their souls and magic used to bind the metal to repair the blade.

Now almost alive, Lament was a rippling seething thing. An eldritch nexus of hatred and darkness, as goblin steel is wont to do, it had taken the fiendfyre that had killed its former master into itself, and fueled by the tormented souls now bound to the blade, it burned with an all consuming hatred, the magic of the dead barely holding it together. It warped the very fabric of the world as Gudul carved a path towards Atlantis. The goblin horde, Insensed by the death of Gringot fought as never before, burning all before them. Gudul led the vanguard, with each kill his blood thirsty blade claimed another soul into itself, warping its wielder more and more, until The Purifier was nothing but an avatar of hatred.

The army made its way to Atlantis, where it was met by the greatest single force of wizard kind to assemble, troops led by the Immortals of Atlantis, the druids of Britannia, the god kings of Egypt, and the ancient Indus shamans.

There it was that the first age ended, and the leylines that had been bound to hold Atlantis shattered, tearing through everything, and anyone who fought there.

Only Lament remained, shattered once again. It was brought to the one place that could permanently end it by the few survivors, goblin and man, who recognized the evil the blade had wrought. It was brought to the banks of the River Lethe, which held at its bottom an exposed leyline, the purest flame, the source of all magic itself. And so the blade was cast into the flames, and there it sat for millennium upon millennium.

The souls once bound to the steel slowly washed away, cleansed of their anger and their fears by the water of the Lethe, and the steel tainted by so much death and bound in torment, drifted away like sand, as hatred was replaced with sorrow, and rage with regret. It was there, buried in the sand under the coursing water, and the flame that Lament took up its name, and was reforged for the third and final time.

It lay there for a very very long time, until a desperate girl with flowing red hair leapt into the water of the Lethe, not caring if she lived or died, just hoping for some way, any way to fight back. A girl with so much sorrow, and so much pain, a girl who would only hurt worse as time went on, a weapon that wielded herself.

Lament saved her that day, binding itself to her soul as much a trusted friend as a weapon, and together they mourn their dead, and lament their actions.

just a bit of bonus lore, hopefully this makes my horrid slow pace of writing some what more bearable.


End file.
